Facebook Lead Ads - Features, Pricing, Alternatives, and More

Reviewed by Matthew Guay

Last updated October 31, 2016

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half," says the adage attributed to department store merchant John Wanamaker. Brand marketing especially is a costly endeavor in large part since the goal is simply getting the name of your company known. That's how most mass media marketing worked prior to the internet—you run an ad on TV or in a newspaper or on a billboard, and hope the right people see and remember your ad.

The internet changed that—upending the business models that depended on mass marketing ads, and creating the opportunity for ads that directly led customers to you. Now, when you run an ad, customers could click on it and jump directly to your site. They could then purchase your products—or, far more likely, they'll click away to another site, and you'll be left wondering which half of your ad dollars were wasted.

Facebook Lead Ads is a new ad tool from Facebook that brings you even closer to your potential customers—and far more likely to turn that person into a customer than your average ad would. Like a normal ad in Facebook, your Lead Ad will show up in people's Facebook feeds, and you can target the ad to the types of people you want—perhaps those already following your page, or those who are interested in products like your own. Then, your ad can include a text message at the top, along with an image, description, and your site's URL—or, you can include a gallery of images to showcase more about your product. There's only one little extra to note: Facebook's Power Editor, which you'll use to build your ad, doesn't work in the latest version of Safari, so you'll need to use Google Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft Edge to build your ad.

Then, there's one thing that sets a Lead Ad apart from other ads: a Sign up button. You can choose from several different CTA texts—including Download, Apply Now, or Subscribe. When people click that button, they'll then see your Lead Form, where you can include form fields to gather the data you need. You can then add standard fields—including email, name, date of birth, and phone number—to your form, or add your own custom fields to ask anything else you'd like. Facebook can prefill many of the default form fields with info in the potential customers' Facebook Profiles—and for the rest, your contacts can type in the data themselves.

Once you turn the ad on, you'll start getting new contacts directly through your ad, complete with their contact info. That's where Facebook Lead Ads integrations come in. You'll use them to connect your ad to your email newsletter, drip messaging, CRM, and other marketing tools so you can send along extra info and stay in touch with these new contacts. And with any luck, you'll soon turn them from a lead into a new customer.

When you need your ads to bring in actual contacts, Facebook Lead Ads are a great tool to use. In minutes, you can build an ad around a customized form that'll grab potential customers' eyes and get them to share their contact with you—right from their Facebook feed.

Facebook lead ads make signing up for business information easy for people and more valuable for businesses. The Facebook lead ad app is useful for marketers who want to automate actions on their leads.